Hanna Boys Center to host national experts on race, Kendi and Menakem

Internationally renowned author Ibram X Kendi and Resmaa Menakem are coming to Sonoma Valley to talk about disrupting systemic violence and racial injustice through trauma-informed care.

They’ll be addressing residents at Hanna Boys Center during the annual Hanna Summit on April 5 and 6. Director Erin Hawkins said the idea for the summit came from its community of adolescents, who she said have seen a massive uptick in violent crime.

“People have been cut off from one of the most important protective factors we have to manage really stressful times, which is connection and community,” Hawkins said. “And so as a result, principals, superintendents, teachers are sharing that there have been really high levels of conflict on campus.”

Hawkins said responding to those social issues is complex and difficult at times, but the summit will provide a space, she hopes, to “give voice” to the amazing thinkers, leaders and organizations working to solve them. Often, gun violence and domestic violence plagues the same poor communities that Hanna Boys Center serves.

The summit’s speakers will address concerns raised by the youth in the community who are aware of the deep economic inequality in Sonoma Valley, she said. Along with Hanna’s assistant director Dr. Heather Hashiko and Sonoma County muralist Rima Makaryan, Hawkins believe the summit can help rekindle the “lost community and connection” that teenagers enjoyed before the pandemic.

For many youths and young adults attending the summit, the marquee focus will fall on the authors Kendi and Menakem who can provide an intersectional lens on the trauma which has been so prevalent over recent years, from gun violence and racial injustice, to losing love ones and isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With a background as a psychotherapist, Menakem wrote the book “My Grandmother’s Hands” in 2017 about the generational trauma all Americans face due white supremacy’s hold on institutions — a problem which has yet to be confronted.

Kendi, whose acclaim grew over the last decade with the release of “How to be an Anti-Racist” and “Stamped from the Beginning,” has catapulted the author into the spotlight of racial discussions from morning talk shows to neighborhood book clubs.

“When we think of the history of the term ‘not racist,’ we’re really thinking eugenicists when being charged with being racist saying they’re not-racists,” Kendi said on a CBS Mornings show in 2021. “We’re talking about Jim Crow segregationists saying they’re not racist, white nationalists and supremacists today say they’re not racist.”

So Kendi has helped to popularize the term “anti-racist,” which states that one is actively opposing racism and support racial equality, unlike someone who is “not racist,” and may be a passive purveyor of racist stereotypes and ideology.

The two speakers will combine their expertise in a joint forum led by a students at Hanna Boys Center, Hawkins said, a chance to ask questions, share stories and connect with Sonoma Valley’s youth will culminate the summit.

To purchase tickets, go to Hanna Boys Center’s website. Single day passes at $150 and two day passes are $275, while students and alumni can buy their tickets for $100. Pricing for groups with 10 or more people can get their tickets for $125 for a single day or $225 for both days of the event.

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.